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Selected Works

The Top Five Best Pieces.

Veliko Turnovo

Create a 3d and physical project out of whatever material you want. 

I wanted to create a Bulgaria themed relief.  I jumped from a couple of different ideas relating to this.

 

These included:

  • Orthodox Iconography

  • A Mountainside

  • Medieval Architecture

  • A National War Monument

  • Veliko Tarnovo

 

I stuck with the Veliko Tarnovo idea as it had a mixture of all of the other ideas as well.  

 

My greatest struggle regarding this project was the composition and how I was going to arrange the pieces together.  I had several iterations but all of them had the same look.  There was a church on top of a hill and a little town beneath it.

 

Another dilemma I had was what material and software to use.  For a while, I wanted to use my 3d printer.  Eventually, I dropped this in favor of using a laser cutter.

Started 9/3/22 finished around 9/23/22

I really enjoyed this project because it turned out better than I had anticipated.  The cardboard’s texture actually accentuated the ruggedness of the mountainsides.  In my opinion, my project was the best in the classroom because it earned me the visual and performing arts student of the month award that October.

This project helped me learn how to use a laser cutter through Illustrator.  It was also practice on rapid prototyping. 

Given assignment around 8/29/22

Got back on assignment on 9/26/22.  Finished assignment in class on 10/31/22.

About 5 weeks spent and around 110 hours in total.

This was definitely my proudest work during my first semester of senior year. 

I learned and practiced with several Illustrator tools I was weak with before.  

These included:

Mesh tool: This helped me make the eyes pop out more and look three dimensional

Pucker and Bloat Effect:  I puckered circles to create the stars in the sky.

Gradient:  Honestly, I may have overdone the gradients on all four posters,  

Blend Tool:  I did not use this anywhere in the posters.  I just experimented with it and decided it would work out.

Symbol Sprayer Tool:  This was used to disperse the stars on the top of the piece.

Gaussian Blur Effect:  Never used it until this project.  Sounds cool though.

Dracula School Play Poster

Create a promotion poster and three different social media posters for a school play.

I brainstormed several different looks and feels for the poster and logo over the course of a month.  What I had originally thought of was completely different to the finished product I came out with.  This was due to countless revisions, 3rd party critiques, and criticism from my graphics teacher and the play director.  

 

The first sketches were inspired by 30s and 50s movie posters of Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee.  The play’s director, Antonio Moon disliked this as he believed it was too generic.  He was probably right in hindsight.  This was because I had not fully read the play itself and so I had a false interpretation of the source material.  The play was based directly on Bram Stoker’s original novel.  

 

After fully reading the material. I came back with more ideas.  I had wanted to use a quote from the play and so I chose “Look into my eyes.”  Hypnotism is a commonly used and typical vampire ability and so I thought it wouldn’t throw off the audience too much.  I drew more close ups with this quote in the foreground.  Mr. Moon liked the direction I was going in and encouraged more of it.  

 

When conducting any project, I always start with brainstorming, mind-mapping, and sketches.  This is to cover as much ground as possibly in the shortest amount of time.  

 

Most of the time I put into a project is spent on just paper alone.

 

I got the greenlight from my peers and the client around 10/3/22 and began work on Illustrator.  Over the next month I would fix and modify my drawings until it was finished.

 

Some problems along the way:  

 

I had to completely redo the logo as it looked (in Antonio Moon’s words) “too much like Kobra Kai.”  

 

My excessive use of gradients was making my stuff bug out constantly.

 

I was told last minute that I had to include new text for legal purposes.  This is because the school was charging money for the play and therefore had to comply with these terms.

 

There were conflicts with what kind of effect would radiate around the eyes.  To coincide with the quote, I wanted Dracula’s eyes to look hypnotic.

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